


Around Again, It Comes Around Again

by schizoauthoress



Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Time Travel Fix-It, original flavor future!Marty is bitter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-03 21:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10975803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schizoauthoress/pseuds/schizoauthoress
Summary: Dr. Emmett Brown's first trip to the future isn't what he was expecting. Or, how Doc found out that "something's gotta be done about your kids!"





	Around Again, It Comes Around Again

Dr. Emmett Brown is exploring the late 2010s for the first time, and he knows he's gaping at everything like a damn yokel. It probably helps, this time, that he's dressed in a plain brown suit -- this one from 1981, slightly out of date even is his own time -- and given his age, it's not like people will expect him to be particularly au courant in terms of fashion. Hill Valley had been a small city when he left it, and while the city limits have expanded some, there is still agricultural land nearby. The future denizens who notice him probably figure that he's simply lived out in the country his whole life, in some isolated little community slow to adopt the latest technology and trends.

He isn't expecting to hear someone say his name.

He isn't expecting that voice to sound familiar.

Emmett turns, a smile on his face, and the name, "Marty!" on his lips -- and a fist smacks him solidly in the face, hurting like hell and making his balance teeter dangerously, but it doesn't knock him to the ground and it misses his nose and most of his mouth.

"You... you left! Vanished right the hell out of my life when I needed you around!" Marty yells. He's older, and angrier (though, honestly, not by much), and the woman with him looks both scared and resigned. "You show up here! Now! This is what you were doing? What about all that talk about being responsible, and finding things out in that natural course of time?"

He really wants to tell Marty to shut up, or at least not be so damn loud, but that would probably only make things worse. He notices Marty cradling the hand used to punch him with, sees how the fingers form painful-looking claws before Marty's other hand covers them up, massaging in habitual motions.

"Your hand..." Emmett says instead. The way Marty's eyes darken, that might have been as bad a mistake as telling him to shut up. A woman -- careworn, hair more grey than red now -- hurries up to Marty and grabs his arm and tucks herself close to his body. Emmett looks at the woman, frowns slightly, and says uncertainly, "Jennifer?"

Recognition sparks in her eyes more certainly than it must in his own. She nods, and says quietly, "You vanished thirty-two years ago, Dr. Brown. It's been... hard on Marty. And things have been going very badly for our family, just recently."

"I vanished...?" He wonders aloud. Does this mean that he doesn't return to Hill Valley? He's been planning to, he knows he has to, in order to preserve the timeline. What dangers does he face after this? He will have to be on his guard. He becomes aware, once again, of how Marty is glaring at him. In an attempt to cover for his confusion, Emmett says, "Yes, I suppose it seemed that way. I... didn't mean to be gone so long. What's happened to you? To you both?"

****

Jennifer is the one who talks to him the most, as they walk through the parking structure where the McFlys left their car. Marty mostly glares during the trip away from the Hill Valley shopping district. He insisted on being in the front seat, and Jennifer insisted on activating the self-driving feature. Marty mutters something about not trusting the automated driver and watching out to resume manual control.

Emmett wonders, but does not ask, if Marty's old hand injury makes driving difficult. The hovercar itself can't really be called manual, since it's clearly outfitted with an automatic transmission. How language changes along with technology!

"What have you been doing this whole time?" Jennifer asks. She's seated on the passenger side, and Emmett is right behind Marty.

"Research, and travel." Emmett shrugs. "And it seems that my research took me much farther from home than I ever intended."

Jennifer gives an incredulous little laugh. "Doc," she says, and it's strange and bittersweet to hear that nickname from her first, "I swear, only you could lose track of whole decades!"

He stammers a sheepish excuse that he's not entirely sure Jennifer buys. He wonders how much Marty told her about his week in the past, and really wishes that Marty would make some sort of indication. He wishes Marty would say anything, actually, and stop giving him such angry looks via the rearview mirror.

Jennifer keeps the discussion to safe, mundane topics, updating him on Hill Valley's progress in the last thirty-plus years. He chokes when she mentions the president of the United States, exclaiming,

"The real estate businessman with that terrrible Atlantic City casino?!"

Jennifer looks confused by that descriptor, though Emmett has no idea why she would, and also the fact that he didn't know the president's identity already. She asks, "Have you been out of the country?"

She and Marty are living in a small apartment in a retrofitted building that Emmett vaguely thinks might have been the Key Bank Tower in his own time. He looks away from the window, back at her, and says, "Well... definitely out of touch with society at large, my dear."

They exit the hovercar. Marty goes around to the back and punches some sort of code into number pad with his good hand. A section of the trunk of the car -- which the McFlys had previous filled with their shopping bags -- detatches and floats upward via its own hover technology. Marty taps at the screen of the wide black watch he wears, and the trunk compartment follows after him as he makes his way to the main entrance. 

Emmett and Jennifer follow behind, Emmett still looking around at everything. He does try to be a little less obvious about it that before, though.

"We used to have a larger place, in a nicer neighborhood," Jennifer says as they cross the lobby.

"Jen," Marty cuts her off in a warning tone.

Jennifer stops, and gives her husband a strained little smile. "Right. No sense in airing the family's dirty laundry."

"Jen." Marty says again, sharper this time. "The cameras?"

Emmett feels his back stiffen automatically, and his eyes dart around. He doesn't see anything that looks like a camera to him. Jennifer notices his unease, and says quietly, "It's okay. Marty's worried about surveillance, because of what happened, but it's not like you'd get in trouble for anything."

Marty sighs, and Emmett wonders how true that is. Whose cameras are they? Who is watching?

They ride the elevator in silence, and Marty is the one to unlock the apartment's front door via fingerprint scan. Part of Emmett wants to ask questions, but he simply files it away as something to learn about later, on his own time. For whatever reason, despite whatever he missed in the past, Marty is allowing Emmett into their lives for a short time.

Marty probably remembers how disoriented and frightened he was, when displaced in 1955, and this is some form of time traveller's courtesy being extended to Emmett.

Well, he'll take advantage of it, as far as he can. Emmett is good at that. Ask the Libyan terrorists.

Emmett watches with interest as Jennifer bustles around the kitchen and gives voice commands to rehydrate food for them. Marty disappears down the hallway, toward what Emmett assumes are the bedrooms. He sits on the couch and marvels at the various forms of technology casually integrated into their living space.

"Marty's hand," he says quietly. Jennifer nearly drops the tray she is taking out of the rehydrater, but recovers. Emmett continues, "that's not a new injury."

"No," she replies, voice steady, "that's an old injury." She pauses, thinking, then remarks simply, "You know he doesn't like to be called 'chicken'."

"I remember," Emmett says, with a slight nod. And he can fill in the blanks. Young Marty had always chafed at the idea of being thought a coward, not just by people he cared about, but anyone. The easiest way to get him to agree to do something stupid was to call him a 'chicken'. Not that Emmett ever had, but he and George and Lorraine had been responsible for cleaning up the aftermath of such childish dares, many times over Marty's childhood and adolescence.

Something similar had happened in the past, some time after Emmett's own first solo trip in the DeLorean time machine. It had given Marty a permanent injury and set him on the path to this future, exacerbated by the fact that Emmett apparently hadn't returned from this trip to 2017.

"You'll have to wait to meet our kids," Marty says, standing at the other end of the living room. "Thirteen years to see Marty Junior, and eighteen for Marlene."

Emmett stares. All he can gasp out is, "What?"


End file.
